鸢属是中等体型的猛禽。其分类尚有争议，包含3-4种鹰类。

中国仅有2种，在各地繁殖。除极北地区冬季南迁外，均为终年居留鸟类。

Milvus is a genus of medium-sized birds of prey. It is an Old World group consisting of three kites that form part of the subfamily Milvinae. Its systematics are under revision; it contains 3 or 4 species.

Allozyme data indicates that the genetic diversity in both black and red kites is rather low. Successful hybridization between Milvus kites is fairly commonplace, making mtDNA analyses unreliable to resolve the genus' phylogeny. Furthermore, there is no good correlation between molecular characters and biogeography and morphology in the red kite due to very incomplete lineage sorting.